Which Google Android Apps Are G1 Users Downloading?

Want to know who's downloading what for their HTC G1 Android phones? Medialets, a company which hooks iPhone and Android apps into mobile advertising, has an early look at the most popular Google phone applications. Here's the data.

Want to know who's downloading what for their HTC G1 Android phones? Medialets, a company which hooks iPhone and Android apps into mobile advertising, has an early look at the most popular Google phone applications. Here's the data.Medialets compiled an early snapshot of the Google Android Market, looking at what was downloading during the first 24 hours of the mobile bazaar, which launched on Oct. 22.

At launch, there were 62 apps available in the Android Market. The nine most popular, which made it to the 10,000 - 50,000 download range, were: ShopSavvy, The Weather Channel, Shazam (identifies what song you're listening to), Pac-Man, Brain Genius Deluze, Bonsai Blast, T-Mobile HotSpot Connect, WikiMobile Encyclopedia, and MySpace Mobile.

This mix, dominated by games, tools, and multimedia widgets, is consistent with what's seen among iPhone users. There, the top free iTunes Apps Store downloads are Google Earth, Pac-Man Lite, and Free Translator. The top paid apps are three games: Moto Chaser, Enigmo, and Topple.

So what new insights, if any, does this data give us about Google phone and iPhone users? Probably simply that these folks are just like other smartphones, only more so. Namely, they'll download anything interesting looking they can get their hands on.

Me, I'm more focused on some of the get-work-done, or what I call "serious leisure," apps which are emerging. In the former category, I'd place Omniture's SiteCatalyst for iPhone, which (if you're a subscriber) lets you track how many people are visiting your Web site, and which pages they're clicking on.

In the fun-but-still-useful bin, I'd place eReader. This is essentially the iPhone's downsized spin on Amazon's Kindle. It lets you read books e-books, which unfortunately you have to pay for. I tried it for the first time on the plane last week, and I have to say it's great to be able to have a book at one's disposal without having to schlep more weight along. The only downside is that you can only see a few paragraphs per screen, so the 250 or so real pages of the book I was viewing equated to 699 iPhone screens.

Medialets's tally of most popular Google Android Market applications. (Click picture to enlarge, and to see two more charts.)

What are your favorite smartphone apps? Please leave a comment below, or shoot me an e-mail directly at alex@alexwolfe.net.

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